One in four Australians who engaged with cyber criminals had money taken directly from their bank accounts.
Australians are among those most likely to fall victim to tech support fraud, second only to India in Asia Pacific, with 24 per cent of those who engaged with cyber criminals reporting that they had unauthorised money transfers from their bank accounts after engaging with the scammers, according to Microsoft’s 2021 Global Tech Support Scam Research report
Over the past 12 months, 68 per cent of Australians surveyed encountered a scam – just a two-point decrease from 2018. Globally, consumers reported a more drastic drop from 64 per cent in 2018 to 59 per cent in 2021. Of Australians who continued with a scam interaction in 2021 (19 per cent), about one in 10 of them (9 per cent) lost money as a result – a three-point increase from 2018 (6 per cent). This is slightly higher than the global average, where 17 per cent of those surveyed continued with a scam and 7 per cent lost money as a result.
Tech support scams are perpetrated globally and target people of all ages. The survey findings reveal that Australians are experiencing higher-than-average tech support scam encounters when compared globally, showing that consumers need to understand how these scammers work to better enable them to protect themselves from scams.
Tactics used by fraudsters to victimise users online have evolved over time, from pure cold calling to more sophisticated ploys, such as fake “pop-ups” displayed on people’s computers. We are committed to online safety and hope these survey findings will help better educate people so they can avoid becoming victims of these scams.
Fewer exposed to scams; unsolicited contact remains largely untrusted
The slight drop in scam encounters in Australia between 2018 to 2021 (from 70 per cent to 68 per cent) seems to have been largely driven by the decrease in pop-up ads and website redirect scams. Scams involving pop-ups dropped the most by four points to 39 per cent and redirects to websites also decreased two points to 34 per cent during the same period. However, unsolicited calls and unsolicited emails received by Australian customers increase by one point to 46 per cent and 41 per cent respectively in 2021.
Australian consumers continue to be distrustful of unsolicited contact. Of those surveyed in 2021, 88 per cent thought that it was very or somewhat unlikely a company would contact them via an unsolicited call, pop-up, text message, ad or email.
Tags: CybersecurityMicrosoft
